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At one point it kinda flirted with the idea of "This supposed legendary hero is in reality just kind of a sad tosser whose myth was built up intentionally, and now this historian will uncover the grimy truth behind the legend.". Which could be a genuinely interesting concept in the hands of an actually competent author. Of course, Rothfuss stuck with that idea for like five seconds and then immediately pivoted "Actually this guy is the most legendary motherfucker to ever gently caress a mother and if anything is even radder than the stories say!"
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Jul 30, 2020 19:30
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Ah the simpsons ploy
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Jul 30, 2020 19:46
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the first book is Harry Potter Repays His Student Loans and the second is basically a bad fanfiction of itself the third will hopefully never come out
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Jul 30, 2020 20:06
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Not like a terrible terrible book but a book that definitely sounded more interesting than it was is the novel Cry Pilot by Joel Dane. The book takes place several hundred years in the future where there's been wars and environmental collapse and nation states are all gone. There were previously some super intelligent AI that designed a bunch of stuff to help including a way to fix the environment, however the machinery behind the fixing sometimes runs into old weapons of mass destruction and turns them into living weapons. The main character is a refugee who wants to make up for a checkered past by joining the military but his refugee status blocks him from enlisting. So he volunteers to become a titular "cry pilot" which are basically warm bodies in a remote control vehicle with a very low (6%) survival rate but if you do survive you get to join the military (being one of the few good jobs left.) The problem is all the stuff about the cry pilot is just like the first 5% of the book and then the rest is just a bog standard mil-sci-fi basic training story. I never finished the book so maybe it eventually went back to the cry pilot plot but I got pretty far and it didn't seem like it was going to.
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Jul 30, 2020 20:50
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Perestroika posted:At one point it kinda flirted with the idea of "This supposed legendary hero is in reality just kind of a sad tosser whose myth was built up intentionally, and now this historian will uncover the grimy truth behind the legend.". Which could be a genuinely interesting concept in the hands of an actually competent author. I feel like I remember so much more bumbling and gently caress ups than other people. Like you get the framing device where he's telling his story in a faux-humble way, and then you get details like him throwing himself off a roof because he was so sure he'd figured out the puzzle from some old guy who is clearly loving with him. Kovothe as a smart guy, but ultimately a fuckup because he thinks way too much of himself seemed to be the direction it was all going in. At the end you'll find out that his biggest fuckup involved whatever mysterious doom he kept chasing, but even then his self-exile at his tavern is just a melodramatic pout-session and he should have been doing something else all along. And then came the sex fairy...
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Jul 30, 2020 21:04
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I never read the follow-up with the sex fairy but in the first book his demon (?) bartender Bast even corners the guy interviewing him in private and says something like “yeah, okay, it seems like this guy is a washed up loser telling nothing but lies, and he is, but this delusion is important for me for some reason.”
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Jul 30, 2020 21:55
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food court bailiff posted:I never read the follow-up with the sex fairy but in the first book his demon (?) bartender Bast even corners the guy interviewing him in private and says something like “yeah, okay, it seems like this guy is a washed up loser telling nothing but lies, and he is, but this delusion is important for me for some reason.” That’s the author complaining about everyone saying his uncle doesn’t actually work at Nintendo twenty years later.
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Jul 30, 2020 21:57
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Captain Monkey posted:Which part of the first one did you like? I only finished the first one by imagining him talking in Zapf Brannigan's voice and having the audience eye roll silently in the background.
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Jul 31, 2020 03:10
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Senior Woodchuck posted:That's not just the wrong direction, it's the wrong part of the country. I-75 runs from Florida to Michigan. 
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Jul 31, 2020 05:36
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So ARCs are out for a debut novel about queer witches taking revenge, but it turns out that it's straight up fan-fiction of actual events, with large swaths of personally identifying details kept in. The GoodReads page is full of reviews to the effect of "I knew Amanda in college, this character is basically me except they made me Korean for some reason."
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Jul 31, 2020 12:54
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Lumbermouth posted:So ARCs are out for a debut novel about queer witches taking revenge, but it turns out that it's straight up fan-fiction of actual events, with large swaths of personally identifying details kept in. The GoodReads page is full of reviews to the effect of "I knew Amanda in college, this character is basically me except they made me Korean for some reason."
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Jul 31, 2020 13:53
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Lumbermouth posted:So ARCs are out for a debut novel about queer witches taking revenge, but it turns out that it's straight up fan-fiction of actual events, with large swaths of personally identifying details kept in. The GoodReads page is full of reviews to the effect of "I knew Amanda in college, this character is basically me except they made me Korean for some reason." I have never been sadder I no longer have access to galleys.
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Jul 31, 2020 17:28
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There's apparently even talk about legal action and the publishers/author maybe agreeing to make changes to the book to make the characters less obvious ripoffs of people she knew. This is wild.
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Jul 31, 2020 19:20
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Lumbermouth posted:So ARCs are out for a debut novel about queer witches taking revenge, but it turns out that it's straight up fan-fiction of actual events, with large swaths of personally identifying details kept in. The GoodReads page is full of reviews to the effect of "I knew Amanda in college, this character is basically me except they made me Korean for some reason." holy poo poo this is awful
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Jul 31, 2020 19:35
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First thought: "good lord, how repulsive, I hope these people take the author to the cleaners" Second thought: "oh my godddd this book is about western-Mass liberal-arts college drama, of course it is" Third thought: "Describing a character's vagina as feeling like 'expired play doh' is so gross and nonsensical it's almost a triumph; most people couldn't be this bad on purpose"
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Jul 31, 2020 23:24
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Serious content warning for assault, sexual and non-, especially in the review by the woman who the horrid author cast as the villain. Oh, and what a surprise, anti-Semitism too because the writing keeps stressing her “long nose” and the real woman is Jewish. One of the victims described this as a form of revenge porn. Nauseating for the writer to do this. Watch her try to hide behind “oh I was just writing from my own experiences.”
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Aug 1, 2020 12:40
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:One of the victims described this as a form of revenge porn. Nauseating for the writer to do this. Watch her try to hide behind “oh I was just writing from my own experiences.” It is a wild and repulsive flex that this novel, called "Consensual Hex" and allegedly a revenge-for-rape story, apparently involves the heroine sexually assaulting one of her housemates with a vibrator, except it's a "heroic" sexual assault because the victim is the evil Jewish villain. God, I hope this woman's ex-friends destroy her in court.
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Aug 1, 2020 21:49
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Antivehicular posted:It is a wild and repulsive flex that this novel, called "Consensual Hex" and allegedly a revenge-for-rape story, apparently involves the heroine sexually assaulting one of her housemates with a vibrator, except it's a "heroic" sexual assault because the victim is the evil Jewish villain. God, I hope this woman's ex-friends destroy her in court. I'm pretty sure the trash author will pull some sort of small penis defense. The publisher did say they'd change some things, so hopefully that helps some.
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Aug 1, 2020 23:34
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A small change would be deleting the text and using the punny title for something else.
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Aug 2, 2020 00:15
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Yeah that could have been a perfectly average Piers Anthony book title.
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Aug 2, 2020 00:28
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Djeser posted:Yeah that could have been a perfectly average Piers Anthony book title. Piers Anthony would definitely prefer Non-Consensual Hex.
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Aug 2, 2020 01:22
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Piers Anthony would definitely prefer Non-Consensual Hex. Bink must quest deep beneath Xanth through the Jazz-Mine, a mine that also smells like flowers [ed: or something I guess, a reader sent it in work with me here] and also makes people incredibly horny. [ed: because Jazz get it? thanks to Tricia McDismal of Wanton Pit, Missouri for that joke, personally I'm tapped out] On his questy quest through the labyrinthine mines Bink encounters a coven of super sexy witches who have something panty-related going on [ed: nice] All this and more in Piers Anthony's newest Xanth adventure, Hex with a Miner!
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Aug 2, 2020 06:52
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Piers Anthony would definitely prefer Non-Consensual Hex. No, see, the deal is that the love interest is cursed with something really debilitating, but the protagonist finds it sexy, so ultimately when they meet up with the witches the love interest decides she wants to keep the curse, so now it's a consensual hex and oh god I hate pretending to think like Piers Anthony for even ten seconds, it makes me feel all greasy
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Aug 2, 2020 07:06
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Antivehicular posted:oh god I hate pretending to think like Piers Anthony for even ten seconds, it makes me feel all greasy
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Aug 2, 2020 07:44
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Luckily I've never read him. I did gently caress up and end up reading a harem book earlier this week though, and just... drat. It had a half decent plot, had it not been for the "hero will bang all the women" going on. Kinda like DBZ where Goku just has to yell and power up, the main character just has to vaguely flirt and boom, incredibly attractive women of all species want him for some reason that makes no goddamn sense. I kept thinking "it'll get better... It has to get better..." and it never did. One day I'll recognize that sunk cost fallacy when I'm reading and just bail when it gets weird.
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Aug 2, 2020 08:34
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Brawnfire posted:Bink must quest deep beneath Xanth through the Jazz-Mine, a mine that also smells like flowers [ed: or something I guess, a reader sent it in work with me here] and also makes people incredibly horny. [ed: because Jazz get it? thanks to Tricia McDismal of Wanton Pit, Missouri for that joke, personally I'm tapped out] On his questy quest through the labyrinthine mines Bink encounters a coven of super sexy witches who have something panty-related going on [ed: nice] More like Hex With a Minor
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Aug 2, 2020 22:22
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Piers Anthony - Hex Offender
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Aug 2, 2020 22:45
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Djeser posted:Piers Anthony - Hex Offender 
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Aug 3, 2020 04:09
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Listening to the Behind The Bastards episodes on Ben Shapiro's book and between that and the 'Crucifix Nipple Nails' it really is astonishing how lacking in self-awareness some people are. I mean, at least this LaVoy Finicum sounds like something in his brain was legit broken. Also pentyne posted:He's said a lot. His editor, a highly regarded professional in the industry, recently said she hasn't seen a single word from him since 2013 and she's pretty sure he doesn't want to be a writer anymore. The sad thing is, I get this. You start off all enthused and eager to create, then you weave out more and more threads, and then suddenly you discover that just how many threads you have in front of you is intimidating (even if you know the ending you want), you don't know how to get them all directed in a way you want, and you lock up completely, your inspiration crashes, and you start suffering from the 'thinking about something gets you almost as much dopamine as doing it' issue. I'm pretty sure that's what's at the core of the last two Thrones books, next to Martin utterly destroying classic story progression for difference/shock value and finding out that that sort of thing has short term gains and long term problems. Cornwind Evil has a new favorite as of 05:05 on Aug 3, 2020 |
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Aug 3, 2020 05:00
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Joe Abercrombie has released eleven books since 2006 and it helps that his series is more a collection of trilogies and stand-alones, so there's no real endpoint to worry about and every book has to wrap-up instead of acting as a 500 page prologue. The Kingkiller's Chronicle is sort of like Shenmue in that takes ages for a single story to resolve, while Yakuza has been trucking on by for years and offers far more bang for your buck.
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Aug 3, 2020 08:54
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Cornwind Evil posted:The sad thing is, I get this. You start off all enthused and eager to create, then you weave out more and more threads, and then suddenly you discover that just how many threads you have in front of you is intimidating (even if you know the ending you want), you don't know how to get them all directed in a way you want, and you lock up completely, your inspiration crashes, and you start suffering from the 'thinking about something gets you almost as much dopamine as doing it' issue. I'm pretty sure that's what's at the core of the last two Thrones books, next to Martin utterly destroying classic story progression for difference/shock value and finding out that that sort of thing has short term gains and long term problems. There's an interesting blog out there that I read, from an author commenting on GoT and Martin. Their take was similar to yours: Martin started strong, threw lots of ideas up in the air and at some point lost control of the narrative. He added too much in and now has no idea how to end it, complicated perhaps by people correctly guessing how the story was going to go. It's not procrastination, he just can't figure how to end it.
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Aug 3, 2020 11:01
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Also, if his originally planned ending was the one they used for the TV series, he put it off so long he got to see that people hated how he wanted it to end. I have never seen so many people completely stop caring about something so fast. GoT went from omnipresent to nowhere within like a week of the show ending.
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Aug 3, 2020 11:09
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I've not watched any of the GoT stuff, but I thought I heard that the tv quickly blitzed through book content and was forging their own stuff halfway through? But yea, that's a trap you see a lot of good ideas/authors fall into; they have an fun idea for the middle of a story, can keep it floating forever in almost an anthology style of thing, can easily backtrack to write the genesis... but have no 'point' to the story arc. All beginnings and middles, no endings. Comics and adult graphic novels are rife with this (perhaps by intent, superheros who go on for decades is kinda the point), but occasionally it seeps out into other mediums like Science Fiction as well. I can't think of any lauded work that doesn't either end on a strong note or the ending doesn't matter as the work was all about the journey and/or prose.
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Aug 3, 2020 11:24
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Serephina posted:I've not watched any of the GoT stuff, but I thought I heard that the tv quickly blitzed through book content and was forging their own stuff halfway through? HBO had made GRRM provide an outline for the rest of the story very early on because of his famous issues with staying on schedule.
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Aug 3, 2020 12:03
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Serephina posted:I've not watched any of the GoT stuff, but I thought I heard that the tv quickly blitzed through book content and was forging their own stuff halfway through? Both Neal Stephenson and William Gibson suffer from this - some of their books seems to be constructed around a core of "stuff happens", there's a decent section that leads into that, but at some point the story staggers, looks around in confusion and just ends. Actually, so much SF is written around showing off a big idea, it's practically a trope and fans are awfully forgiving of it.
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Aug 3, 2020 12:25
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Ugly In The Morning posted:HBO had made GRRM provide an outline for the rest of the story very early on because of his famous issues with staying on schedule. Yeah, that's what blows my mind about all the people having meltdowns about how 'the books wouldn't dooooooo this to us!!!!'
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Aug 3, 2020 13:20
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I remember hearing that the ending of the show got changed from what they'd planned to do because some people on Reddit had, one thousand monkeys on typewriters style, guessed what the ending was going to be, and they couldn't let it not be surprising so they changed it.
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Aug 3, 2020 13:47
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Dany's ending was really rushed in the show but has already been set up in the books, and if Sanderson finishes them I can see it working a bit better.Serephina posted:I've not watched any of the GoT stuff, but I thought I heard that the tv quickly blitzed through book content and was forging their own stuff halfway through? The pacing wasn't a problem. The first two seasons cover a book each, and then things get split up a bit because the third book is long and the 4th and 5th run somewhat in parallel. It wasn't until season 6 that they had to rely heavily on their own material (S5 was bad but the worst bits were just reworked versions of bad bits from the books). Doctor Spaceman has a new favorite as of 14:42 on Aug 3, 2020 |
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Aug 3, 2020 13:54
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Quantum Strangeness by George Greenstein. Holy moly does that guy know how to repeat himself.
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Aug 3, 2020 14:41
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Dany's ending was really rushed in the show but has already been set up in the books, and if Sanderson finishes them I can see it working a bit better. oh is sanderson going to have to step in after another fantasy author dies before finishing their epic
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Aug 3, 2020 14:50
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